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Atlanta plans to settle the case with a family whose dog was shot and killed by an Atlanta police officer on Nov. 10, 2013. The $25,000 settlement is a fraction of the $500,000 initially sought, but does come with the comfort of a recently approved training program for officers when they encounter animals.

James Litchfield Beavers is not a name that most Atlantans today are familiar with but, back in his day, James Beavers was “The Man”…literally. For 26 years, James Beavers was a member of Atlanta’s police force and from 1911 to 1915 he was Atlanta’s “Top Cop,” the Chief of Police.

In his almost three decades of police work, James Beavers changed, adapted and grew with the City of Atlanta. He was on duty during Atlanta’s Race Riot of 1906, he was charged with enforcing a city-wide ban on alcohol which took effect in our city 12 years prior to the passage of the 18th amendment. In his capacity as Chief, Beavers oversaw the investigation of the Leo Frank case which garnered nation-wide publicity.

JaTawn Robinson is one of many parents fighting the cross-currents of modern culture as she rears her three young sons. Signs of the currents abound in metro Atlanta.

In her southwest Atlanta neighborhood, Robinson said, children learn from each other that it’s wrong to “snitch” on criminals.

This weekend in Buckhead, Macy’s Lenox Square is hosting the rapper Lil Wayne to promote a Trukfit clothing line. Wayne’s website depicts him smoking what the caption calls a “huge joint.” Wayne’s portrayal of gang culture – particularly the Bloods – prompted MTV and BET to ban from their airwaves the video he and the artist Game released in 2011.

Crime is again coming to the forefront of conversation in Atlanta and Fulton County.

Four members of the 9 Trey Gangster organization have been arrested by Atlanta police in connection with at least one homicide in southwest Atlanta, police said Wednesday. The gang is affiliated with the United Blood Nation, as in the “Crips and Bloods” of the 1980s, according to the FBI.

Fulton County commission Chairman John Eaves is slated to speak Thursday evening at a program titled, “Neighborhood Gangs and Protecting Our Youth.” This follows the “Crime and Safety Summit” Eaves convened in March.

A string of narcotics arrests near Five Points last week, plus arrests for several outstanding warrants and the recovery of a stolen handgun, are among the latest examples of the challenges of sprucing up the city’s southern business district.

This section of downtown Atlanta remains a place of competing objectives. The planned billion-dollar redevelopment of the gulch and neighboring area may spark a restoration of Atlanta’s historic urban core, even as an underground economy seems to thrive in the current environment.

The pedigree of one building where drug arrests were made highlights part of the economic tension. The building was purchased in 2009 for a sum higher than may be expected in the recession: 175 percent of the value assigned by Fulton County’s tax assessors.

“Everything is hard the first time,” Asa Valente tells her fourth graders at Berkeley Lake Elementary in Duluth. “Don’t get discouraged. Hold yourself up and keep trying.”

The lives she touches there were in the balance as Valente battled acute lymphoblastic leukemia. To stay in the classroom as a vibrant, inspired teacher, Valente needed a stem cell transplant. This forced her to live out what she had been teaching her students, and put her lin the path of a stranger 4,200 miles away who was using education to help people survive.

A few days before Valente and her stem cell donor met in Atlanta, national TV anchor (and former Atlantan) Robin Roberts highlighted stem cell transplants by receiving one from her sister.